State Senate Gets Energy Package

More than 40 bills, most of them part of Sen. T.C. Yim’s energy conservation and development package, were introduced in the Legislature’s upper house yesterday, marking a transition from opening festivities to today’s session work.

As chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, he has held extensive hearings on energy topics and has become the main legislative advocate of developing alternative energy sources here.

The introduction of the energy bills, along with a batch of resolutions, were the only substantive business conducted  yesterday — the first day of the 1978 session set aside for music, amicable gatherings and casual cocktail party politicking.

Both houses of the Legislature opened at 10 a.m. to the sound of demonstrators chanting about the unemployment situation here. A quieter group of sign-carriers in the Capitol courtyard complained of its unsatisfactory dealings with the now-defunct THC Financial Corp.

Inside the Senate chambers, a small group of protestors were evicted, but not arrested, after they unfolded a banner and began shouting shortly after the proceedings began. …

The energy-related bills seek to make the state self-sufficient in energy by the year 2020. The sweeping legislative package would, as envisioned by Yim, cost more than $17 million.

The bills would create a state department of energy research and development; grant tax incen-

tives to encourage the construction of facilities to produce energy from geothermal and biomass sources; allow geothermal plants to exist on land zoned for agricultural and conservation uses; and require county building codes to include energy conservation provisions.

Other bills would immediately prohibit the use of decorative propane fueled flames, and would ban pilot lights in gas stoves by 1980 and fossil fuel heated swimming pools by 1981.

Other parts of the package would create a state van pool program and would require the state to give preferential parking treatment, such as reduced rates, to employees who use car pools.

The bills ask for more than $17.5 million to support the energy programs, the bulk of the money to be raised by the sale of general obligation bonds.